'Age is overrated, I'm infatuated': how Megan Stammers and teacher used Twitter to communicate

Megan Stammers, the runaway schoolgirl, had been exchanging messages with her
maths teacher on Twitter for at least six months, each posting cryptic
messages and song lyrics about being in love.

Megan Stammers and Jeremy Forrest

By Victoria Ward and John Paul Ford Rojas

6:40PM BST 26 Sep 2012

Jeremy Forrest, 30, disclosed that he was “sacrificing his sanity” to be with the one he loved and described feeling “helpless”.

In March, when she was just 14, Megan claimed that she was “probably just infatuated” before adding two days later: “Age is overrated.”

The pair, who also discussed running away together, have not been seen since catching a ferry together from Dover to Calais last Thursday evening.

Friends claimed that they alerted teachers at Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne when Megan and Mr Forrest, who is married, were seen holding hands on a flight home from a school trip to Los Angeles in February. But questions have been raised about what action, if any, was subsequently taken.

Megan’s family insist they were unaware that she was in a relationship with a man twice her age, despite suggestions that her head teacher, the police and the local council were investigating.

Hundreds of tweets posted online over the past six months appear to illustrate the level of intimacy that had developed between the pair, who apparently socialised outside school hours.

Many of Mr Forrest’s tweets concern relationship and convey anguish about an apparently difficult scenario. The amateur musician, from Ringmer, near Lewes, disclosed that he “only ever tweeted for one person”. In June, he wrote: “Some things are worth fighting for …”

The previous month he wrote: “I’ve been trying to make sense. I’ve been shouting under my breath. How’s any of this in my interest?”

In a message sent to Mr Forrest in March, Megan, who refers to him online as Jeremy, wrote: “Too many things keep me awake!!! Are you not sleeping either?!”

On one occasion, she repeatedly apologised to Mr Forrest for her behaviour the previous evening, stating that she was embarrassed and had a terrible headache, asking him if her hated her.

She also made frequent references to her love of maths, describing how she had run to school when she thought maths was the first class.

Many of Megan’s messages concern the trials and tribulations of a complicated romance and several include coded references to her age.

On July 1, she wrote: “I just want to get on a train / in a car and go somewhere with you.”

That day, Mr Forrest tweeted: “I want to go everywhere with you baby, & for the record you never look anything less than absolutely beautiful …”

Friends claimed yesterday that their relationship was “common knowledge” and parents of children at Bishop Bell School demanded an inquiry into the apparent lapse in child protection.

There have been calls for Terry Boatwright, the head teacher, to quit for failing to suspend Mr Forrest as soon as the allegations came to light.

It emerged yesterday that Lucy Duckworth, a child protection campaigner, contacted the Education Secretary to raise “serious concerns” about the school several months ago.

She said she wrote to Michael Gove over fears that its child protection policies were “inadequate” and accused school staff of being “extremely hostile” when she wrote several times asking to see its child protection policy.

The school rejected the claims, insisting that it had a “robust” safeguarding policy in place.